Scout Teamplay Update

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by cat5niper, Nov 29, 2016.

  1. cat5niper

    cat5niper Member

    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    A common problems that teams face is their number of scouts. Despite the scout clearly being a fun class they don't contribute much to the team.

    Here are a few suggestions that will increase the depth and teamwork of this class by increasing his scouting ability:

    1) Sapping buildings gains information for the team.
    * Sapping a Radar gives the details of the enemy research
    * Sapping a Vehicle Factory gives weapons, armor and engine amounts (2 Uml, 4 Composite, 3 Bio diesel ect)
    * Sapping a Barracks gives the class of each enemy player on TAB (until they die after the sap has ended)

    2) Binoculars mark targets with mouse 1
    * Marking buildings adds them to the mini map
    * Marking tanks allows teammates to see their armor amount and type while the scout is nearby
    * Marking infantry adds them to the mini map and highlights them with with the camera effect.

    By making the scout better at his primary role of scouting we can make him much more useful in any team and allow players the freedom to choose a class that otherwise might cost them the game.
     
  2. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    4,827
    Likes Received:
    190
    Trophy Points:
    0
    There's no amounts to vehicle stuff, so that vf suggestion doesn't actually do anything. I guess it would still show what they have researched, but nearly all of it can be either guessed quite accurately(weapons have very different sounds and explosion particles) or it's not really that handy to know(engines). It should be remembered that sabbed raxes and vfs spawn things in at half health which is already handy, though maybe not very recon like.

    I don't think I ever see scouts use the binocs, at least the number of times I see the "requesting artillery" from the binocs amounts to just a handful of times. Most of the time people go scout just to use the scout rifle, which means they aren't running up to buildings to sabotage them or bothering with the binocs(I mean why use that when you can use the scope that lets you shoot too?).

    I do think scout should be more useful, and I would be happy to see any of this, but if you think this will seriously help the huge amounts of newer players who play scouts be more beneficial to the team you are sadly mistaken. Removing the scout rifle would be more helpful simply because it would prevent these players from sitting a million miles away from the team being useless when all of their core abilities require them to be right next to the enemy.

    I'm still just a tad sad we gave up on the scout being an assault class so soon, but it is what it is. Things like this need to be hashed out near the start of development, not after years when people have come to accept certain things as how it's suppose to work.
     
  3. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

    Messages:
    6,926
    Likes Received:
    148
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Could scout binoculars give entire team targets?
    Like for the next 2 minutes or so. That'd be super useful actually
     
  4. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

    Messages:
    3,137
    Likes Received:
    140
    Trophy Points:
    0
    It's actually funny that this "scout buff/rework...etc" have been discussed for multiple times.

    We couldn't have reached a conclusion because
    1: "Just remove scout."
    2: "Remove Scout rifle."
    3: "Rework Sniper".
    4: "Give scout rifle to Rifleman".
    5: "Buff Scout so it'll be an infantry tank."
    6: "no just remove scout."
    7: *insert anything that requires a lot of coding*

    I have a feeling that this is something we have to decide decisively, we gathered enough opinions and yeah, nothing will satisfy everyone.
     
  5. Ranger

    Ranger Member

    Messages:
    706
    Likes Received:
    67
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I support the commando idea for scout. That includes a wider variety of weapons including explosives (stickies? or new plantable), roflman weapons, smgs, all pistols because why not and well sniper would work too since the commando would theoretically be a special unit good for many situations and possibly a class with unit restriction. but it just complicates things because of newbs so idk about that.
     
  6. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

    Messages:
    6,926
    Likes Received:
    148
    Trophy Points:
    0
    i dont think anyone would complpain if you removed scout completely
     
  7. cat5niper

    cat5niper Member

    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    When I mentioned the amounts of vehicle parts, I meant that if a team has 5 tank, 3 with uml, 2 with he cannon then that data is given to the side that sapped. So by sapping a VF you get a basic amount of information about what technology your enemy is using, Whereas a radar would give you information about what technology he has access to.
     
  8. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

    Messages:
    3,137
    Likes Received:
    140
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I would still like it if we can elegantly solve this problem, aka make scout useful.

    I removed Budget armor because there's literally no place for it and we have enough diversity.
    Only got 4 infantry classes tho.
     
  9. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

    Messages:
    6,926
    Likes Received:
    148
    Trophy Points:
    0
    its not really a good argument to say you removed budget armor because enough armors so we cant remove class because not enough classes.

    Do we even have a development goal for scout? Whats the point of scouts shouldnt we figure that out first before we make them.
    Classes should have a well definied roal in this game, rifle kills stuff, engi builds and support infantry, gren destroys buildings and vehicles ( and really good ones destroy infantry ). Scout does what? Nothing
     
  10. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    4,827
    Likes Received:
    190
    Trophy Points:
    0
    If you intend to keep scout rifle on it you need to make it somehow useful at distance. So either it can drop some sort of long distance thing that helps team like that thing in bf3/4 that gives laser targets on vehicles for rockets to hit or some type of utility recon thing like maybe a line of sight cameras or something. If this was a more futuristic setting I'd say give it an ability to basically give targets to every one on team that the scout just looks at. I mean even if you gave the scout long distance tools they are very likely to not actually use them because the only thing they want to do is use the scout rifle. In any case there needs to be a significant change to be useful at range and I question if that's a good idea for empires in general.

    If you get rid of the scout rifle then it's forced to be near the front lines. When there was talk of scout update in the news section like a few years ago it felt like with the change to hide to be a time based cloak like tf2 spy it was gearing towards more mobility at the frontlines, or at least get behind enemy lines without crawling for years. Oddly enough I feel tf2 has the best use of cloak because it's given to a class that needs to be right next to the enemy to do anything, what a shocking concept. I mean what's the point of giving cloak to something that's miles away from combat, it's dumb and pointless.

    Paradox is making the best point, we have 3 classes that pretty much fill every area needed in empires because of how wide their strengths are. A stealth class might be handy, and effective scouts are handy, but currently with the way things work in empires it feels like something super shiny that really just draws in the people least suited for it, so it's a detriment to the team. What I'm trying to say is that a really really good scout probably has the highest difficulty in learning because you have to basically ignore many of the obvious choices for the class. It's not obvious at all what you should to do to help team, so the class is effectively misused if you wanted to really be helpful to the team.
    Ah, I get it. I just really question when this information will actually be helpful. At the very least I can't think of how one could use this info productively.


    As an aside I wonder if a short blurb under the class menu describing the class strengths might help move people in the right direction in using classes effectively.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2016
  11. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

    Messages:
    3,137
    Likes Received:
    140
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Apparently Scout is supposed to "scout", but it was not given with the tools.
    For example, if Scout's binocular can ignore vision range limit, you can sit in your main base on isle/money and see exactly what the enemy team is doing in their main.
    For example, we can reduce the range of auto-spot of rifle/gren/engi by 50%.

    I can make it an infantry tank(that's literally 5 mins work for me) but I guess I should rename it to Assault.

    *cough* cover for sniper * cough*
    It's almost useless, with the exact same reason as why I despise armor counters.
     
  12. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    4,827
    Likes Received:
    190
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I get the cover idea, I say that's the point of using natural cover. I mean really it's just a tool to be more annoying, at least that's how it works in empires for people who want to snipe.
     
  13. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

    Messages:
    6,926
    Likes Received:
    148
    Trophy Points:
    0
    you are missing the point again. Why would we need an infantry tank when we have something called rifleman. It makes no sense to add an assault.
    We honestly are fine with 3 classes instead of 4. Add the abilities scout have and give them to other classes.
    Sticky stuns could be given to grens rifles or even engineers. Sniper rifle given to rifle. Binoculars given to engis etc. The skills scout has given to other classes
     
  14. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

    Messages:
    3,137
    Likes Received:
    140
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Did I mention a chocolate cake I ate yesterday? I am hitting the point, it's all about Scout.

    First, you can't possibly say that scout atm is completely useless, it's just nubs don't know how to use it.

    If it's an infantry tank, even a nub can use it correctly.

    *stop feeding, build tank*, I thought as a dota player you'd appreciate this a little bit.
     
  15. ScardyBob

    ScardyBob Member

    Messages:
    3,457
    Likes Received:
    30
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I vote implement blimps and make the scout the dedicated blimp driving class.
     
  16. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

    Messages:
    6,926
    Likes Received:
    148
    Trophy Points:
    0
    *stop feeding, build tank
    wtf
    you obviously have no clue how to do dota or you do and you are 2k mmr

    You still arent hitting the point. The entire thing is that scout has no meaningful sense of direction like the other 3 classes have. They are all equally important. Dont tell me you think scout is equally important as rifle gren or engi.
    There should NOT be a class in empires that is subpar to another. Thats just stupid.
     
  17. VulcanStorm

    VulcanStorm Developer Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    552
    Likes Received:
    64
    Trophy Points:
    0
    @cat5niper I agree with what you are saying. Some of your suggestions may be easier to implement than others.

    I think we could certainly add the benefit for sapping a radar. However it should only show the current research, adding a new element of intelligence gathering to the game.

    As for the spotting. Doesn't "Q" already do that? And it can be done by all classes.
     

Share This Page